An Ocean of Fire- Supercorp AU

45- Epilogue

She'd been home for four months, but sometimes she still had the dreams. They were coming less often, and the mind healer said they were normal- but that didn't make it easier. They would grip her in the middle of the night, snake around her lungs and squeeze tightly until it felt like she could only exhale as a shout.

It would inevitably wake her, covered in sweat, hands ripping at another set of ruined sheets. Her ribs were a drum, her heart a mallet, thumping to the beat of war marching. Her trembling hands would eventually rest down in her lap, and she'd stare at them as if they were still covered in the edges of dirty trenches and broken boulders.

Tears would begin pooling at the corners of her eyes, and she would squeeze them shut tightly - as if she could stop them from falling, and thus stop it from hurting. It never quite worked.

Not until soft, clean, unblemished fingers would snake into hers. Pale, gentle hands would tug at hers, while smooth lips whispered hushed and easy assurances. They would pull her palms, knuckles, fingers, until they were firmly cradling the warm skin of a naked, rounded belly.

"You are home, zygai," she would murmur, pressing her back tightly to Kara's chest. "You are with us."

Kara's face would find the nape of Lena's neck, her heart still thrumming in her chest, her eyes still tightly closed. Fingertips would caress her wrists and the backs of her hands, threading between her fingers and pressing her closer, closer. Lena would turn her head to press her temple to Kara's, her voice still spilling gentle shushes as she traces away the last lingering remnants of memory.

When Kara's spine finally lost its rigidity, she would sigh a breath into Lena's skin, her lips tracing the slope of her shoulder and neck. Her palms would smooth across the filigree of geography that was taught and stretched skin - tethers that grounded a round universe to a solid pelvis, lines that she took the time to admire with her whole soul. A proud smile would curl along Lena's red lips, her eyes dropping closed as she settled in and accepted the appreciation.

If she had dark smudges beneath her eyes, she wore them with grace. If she had an aching spine, she held it with honor. If she had tender breasts, she bore them with peace. Something quiet and calm had settled over her in these last few months - even when she had to stop in her tracks and press her knuckles to the small of her back, or blow out a breath softly and curl the heel of her palm into her side, her eyes would slip shut and the edges of her lips would rise.

Kara watched her more than once, when she thought she wasn't looking, as she skimmed soft hands along her belly, inhaled deeply, and took a moment to simply exist.

It grabbed at her heart, more than anything - more than watching the brunette struggle to put her shoes on, more than being woken in the middle of the night to help her get out of bed ("I've peed sixteen times tonight I swear to Rao"), more than watching her softly conversing with naught but her own curved belly as she explained the chemical properties of acids and bases.

Those moments grabbed at her heart more than anything, because she was witnessing Lena become a Mother. More importantly, because the context of that was so different now than she could have ever known.

She was Wenah im Rao.

She was a champion of Krypton- the slayer of evil, a future Queen.

She was so much more than a Mother, yet it punctuated everything that made her so powerful.

She wore it like a crown, a noble banner that she carried with a quiet resilience that whispered of unspeakable power.

She was unstoppable, brilliant, a fiery goddess.

And when Kara would wake in the night, lost in the darkness, she was a beacon of love that always guided her home again.

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